The Cowardice Behind the Times’ Anonymous Op-Ed

By Alex Waterman on October 10, 2018

On September 5, a senior White House official stepped forward and wrote an anonymous op-ed piece describing President Donald Trump’s“amorality,” reckless decision making, and “erratic behavior,” among other worrying tendencies that throw the White House into daily turmoil. Following the release of veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s book, Fear, which describes President Trump’s dangerous misunderstanding of foreign events, as well as his volatile decision making in office, the anonymous article just reaffirmed the many prior claims of Trump’s erratic behavior during his Presidency.

While I am a fervent Trump-opposer, I believe that the author of the op-ed is a coward for not publishing their name. My thought was this: What was the point of the piece? What was the author’s goal? What change will come from it? In spite of the author’s revelations, there seems to be no movement to remove the President, who appears to be a danger to the country and the world at large.

If Trump is as unstable as they claim, White House senior officials need to publicly denounce his behavior. If these officials have actually been taking away and hiding documents from the President—as claimed by Bob Woodward—because they believe that either he will not understand the documents or will take actions detrimental to the safety and health of Americans, then it is time for these officials to step forward publicly and take real steps towards change. At no point in time should the advisors closest to Trump be undergoing a covert agenda to sway the President from the inside to prevent WWIII; working under the radar is cowardly.

As David Frum states in the Atlantic, “If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally intellectually unfit for his high office, they have a duty to do their utmost to remove him from it, by the lawful means at hand.”

The anonymous author is rightly afraid of losing their job, but after sharing with the American people all the alarming tendencies that the President has exhibited, the moral thing for the author to do would be to take a stand and deliver the message in person, no matter the consequences. David Frum also states, “On their first day at work, they swore an oath to defend the Constitution-and there were no ‘riskiness’ exemptions in the text of the oath.” This perfectly describes why the author needs to come forward, and why, if the President is as “reckless,” as claimed, anything should be done to get rid of the president by those who have sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States.

How many times, and from how many different sources, will we be informed about how the President is unfit to lead? The 25th Amendment is not, as thought by the anonymous author of the op-ed, a constitutional crisis. It is indeed an efficient tool to avoid such a crisis. The 25th Amendment simply provides the procedures for replacing the president or vice president in the event of death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation. In this case, “incapacitation” is the keyword.

Instead of “steering the administration in the right direction,” as the op-ed piece believes would be the best option, it’s time to take a new approach and fight for what is right, and what is in the best interests of all citizens of the United States, publicly.